116 REPORT OF BOARD OF FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONERS. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH COPPER SULPHATE IN KILLING FUNGUS INFESTING THE 
EGGS IN HATCHERY JARS. 
A number of experiments were tried to determine if this fungus can 
be killed by the use of copper sulphate without injuring the fish. 
1. The fungus can be killed by application of copper sulphate 
(1-500,000 parts). 
2. Fish or developing eggs are killed by application of copper sulphate 
(1-10,000 parts). 
3. A small proportion of eggs are killed by solution of 1-25,000. 
4. About 1 per cent of eggs are killed by application of 1-50,000. 
5. The developing embryos will stand an application of 1-100,000 
parts of copper sulphate without harm. This strength kills all the 
fungus and other organisms except small crustaceans. 
6. It can be applied directly to the affected jars by dropping the 
required quantity into the jar and allowing the water to run as it 
ordinarily would. 
Example .—A jar containing 5,000 c.c. of water would require one 
twentieth of a gram of copper sulphate to equal 1 part to 100,000. 
It may be applied to the entire lot of jars by mixing and dissolving 
the required quantity in a small amount of water and adding it to the 
water as it runs in from the pipe. 
Example .—If the water is running at the rate of 2^ gallons per 
minute (1,000,000 c.c.), it would require 10 grams of copper sulphate 
dissolved in 5 quarts of water and added slowly to water at head. 
This experiment was actually tried and a lot of eggs which were 
infected with fungus left attached to the trough, also a lot which had 
been treated twice by dropping sulphate into jar. Neither one of these 
lots were affected. The fungus is thus cleaned out of troughs and it 
may all be flushed out by running in fresh water after the water with 
sulphate has been in for thirty-five minutes. 
The copper sulphate may also be used in a strong solution for cleaning 
used jars. There is usually a coating of oil on the inside of jars after 
one lot of eggs has been hatched in them and on this oil a collection of 
fungus and other micro-organisms. The application of the copper sul¬ 
phate cleans this oil off and kills all fungus or bacteria that may be 
collected on the sides of the jars. 
Troubles .—A considerable amount of trouble was experienced with 
most lots of eggs in keeping them in the jars at about 12 to 24-hour 
stage. The bad eggs became attached to the good ones and carried 
them over. It was found that under the ordinary pressure about 10 
per cent of the good eggs would go off in this way. An examination 
under the microscope of the eggs that were going off showed that they 
were connected by the fungus and other organisms which collect on the 
